AKA William

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As part of its GOOD 100 Issue — which is a collection of the 100 most important, exciting, and innovative people, ideas, and projects making our world better — GOOD delivers a well-taken point (by me, anyway) on marriage equality.

What’s often lost in the banter about same-sex marriage is the effect the institution could have on children. That is, on gay children. Traditionally, a homosexual young person is told—whether explicitly or tacitly, by means of our societal mechanisms—that he or she will have no spouse, no children, and no chance to enter into a lifelong social contract with another person. The result is a relegation to isolation and, as the political commentator Andrew Sullivan wrote earlier this year, “That’s a brutal psychic wound that leads to all sorts of subsequent problems and pathologies.”

What those who decry gay marriage don’t realize (or perhaps they do) is that in arguing against it, they propagate the falsehood that there’s an inherent schism between homosexuality and virtue, thereby furthering the tired narrative of gay culture as defined by promiscuity and vice.

Oh, by the way, GOOD is “a collaboration of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits pushing the world forward.”

And how much am I loving this new push to include LGBT kids in the question, “What about the children?” A lot.